Yigal Bashan, then one of the most popular singers in Israel, recorded in 1975 his album ‘Yigal Bashan and Good Friends’, in which he had a few duets with other Israeli singers.
The second track of the album is ‘Im Nin’alu’ of Rabbi Shalom Shabazi, in which Ofra took part on the background vocals.
Ofra was only 17 then, after previously doing one album of the Hatikva Workshop and a first hit on the radio – ‘Longings’.
Bezalel Aloni says Ofra recorded it, and they forgot about it. Then one day he heard the song on the radio, and Ofra’s voice was almost unheard. He called to ask for the reason, and was told that her voice overshadowed Yigal’s voice, so they had to lower it.
A decade later Ofra recorded the song to her album ‘Yemenite Songs’, although she recorded it again and perform it on many other occasions, and achieve International success.
In the mid-1970’s Ofra started to become famous with Shechunat Hatikva Workshop Theater. In 1977 she got an invitation from the Israeli educational television to sing ‘The Punctuation Song’, an educational song for children in the childrens series ‘The Kids of Hayim Neighborhood’, which was very popular at the time. Ofra agreed, and got the part of the dot.
Neighborhood Stories was a spin-off of ‘The Kids of Hayim Neighborhood’. In 1979 Ofra was asked to play a role in one of its episodes. In the role, that fits her public image perfectly, Ofra tried to find a balance between a boy who wants to go to the movies with his friends on Shabbath, and his father, who insists his son would come to Kiddush (Jewish ritual of the sanctification of the Shabbath with a blessing over a wine before dinner). After the kid stays for Kiddush, it turns out his friends sold their tickets when they saw he wasn’t coming, and everyone sings together ‘To the Candle and Spices’ with Ofra.
In 1982 Avi Toledano represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Hora’, and won second place. Avi had great success in Israel when he returned after the competition. A year later he wrote the music for ‘Hi’, which Ofra sang in the Eurovision, and also won second place. Ofra and Avi were chosen as singers of the year for 1983, and as happened each year in that period, they recorded a duet called ‘After the Holidays’. This song was included in Ofra’s album ‘Hi’.
In 1986 Ofra was invited to sing a few songs in the TV show ‘The Song of the Land (Mi Zimrat Ha’aretz)’, hosted by Ehud Manor. The show was dedicated to Le’a Goldbergs’ songs. Ofra sang 3 songs on the show. While rehearsing to the show, Ehud asked Ofra if she would be willing to sing with Yehudith Ravitz the song ‘The Flute’, and she agreed. Ofra and Yehudith sang it as the closing song of the show. Ofra says “the combination of our voice sounded so good, that I decided to include this song on my album ”Homeland Songs 3″.
In 1987 the cast of ‘Zehu Ze’, then one of the most popular shows for teenagers on Israeli television, were planning a special show for Purim – a Jewish holiday in which people wear masks. They were looking for a singer who could also act, so that they can include her for the first time in the story, and immediately thought of Ofra Haza. Ofra, who was on the show many times as a singer, was happy about the proposal to come on as an actor, and agreed. In the show Ofra plays Esterika, which is Ester, who was kidnapped by Haman and saved by the Buz Brothers. At the end of the show Ofra sings ‘We All Have Something In Common’ with the rest of the cast.
In the mid 1980’s ‘We Are The World’ was recorded featuring many renowned American singers, with all income donated to charity. In response, the singers of Israel decided to record ‘One People With One Song’, and donate all of its income to handicapped children. Besides Ofra, singers like Yehoram Ga’on, Yardena Arazi, Shoshana Damari and others took part in it.
Duncan Dhu is a Spanish band established in 1984. In 1990 Ofra was invited to sing the song ‘Herida de Miel’ for the soundtrack of the movie ‘Dick Tracy’. Madonna, who sang most of the songs, suggested Ofra for this song; “It all happened so fast”, says Ofra. “We got an invitation from Madonna. I have long heard she loved ‘Shaday’. They asked me if I wanted to record the song. Because I had two spare days, I said I could do it the day after. I learned the song in the morning, and recorded it by evening”.
In 1991 Bezalel Aloni told Kobi Oshrat, an Israeli composer and producer, that International singer Cliff Richard was supposed to visit Israel and perform a duet with Ofra on a TV show; and asked Kobi if he had a song that would suit them. Kobi remembered a song which he had written music to the lyrics of Ehud Manor called ‘Map of Love’.
The song was first sang in Hebrew by Osnat Zano in the Pre-Eurovision contest in 1989, but did not win. Later Ehud wrote lyrics in English, and Ofra and Kobi recorded it in English, in order to send it to Cliff. In the end, and because Cliff and Ofra couldn’t find the time to rehearse, they didn’t do the duet.
In 1991 Paul Anka recorded a special album in which he recorded again his greatest hits along the years. Paul wanted to gain back some of the glory he had in the 1960’s. His producers turned to Ofra and asked her to record with him his song ‘Freedom for the World’. Everyone close to Ofra suggested that she should not do it, because singing with Paul Anka wouldn’t do any good to her around the world, because Paul was already forgotten. Ofra decided to record it, and said: “you have no idea how many tears I had in my eyes on the 60’s because of his songs”.
In 1991 many international artists got together to record ‘Give Peace a Chance’ – John Lennon’s song, attempting to prevent the war in Iraq. Ofra also got an invitation to take part in the song, along with Peter Gabriel, MC Hammer, Lenny Kravitz and many others. The song was released during the Gulf War and became the most played video on MTV.
“After the song was released, we got phone calls from all around the world”, says Ofra. “Everyone knew my family lives where missiles are hitting, and asked to see how I’m doing”. When the song became a big hit, the whole crew was invited to many popular talk shows. Ofra refused. “The song was recorded before the beginning of the war, and was meant to prevent it. I was in favor of peace too, but when missiles began to hit Israel it changed. I refused to be on the Arsenio Hall Show and say I was in favor of peace like everyone. I couldn’t just say ‘give peace a chance’ when my family is being targeted. I wanted to say ‘give Bush a chance’. They didn’t want me to say these things, so I decided not to participate”.
In 1991 Ofra recieved a special invitation to perform as a special guest on the MTV music awards. Andrew Aldridge, the lead singer of the Sisters of Mercy band were was also invited to perform at the event, and surprised Ofra when he told her he was a huge fan of hers, and has her posters above his bed. He even told the journalists he would have loved to marry her. Andrew asked Ofra to renew an old song of his band – ‘Temple of Love’, and Ofra agreed. The song achieved great success, and was aired many times on MTV (both as a videoclip and on stage), and reached No. 3 on UK charts.
In the end of 1991 Ofra recorded her international album ‘Kirya’. One of the songs in ‘Kirya’ was ‘Daw Da Hiya’, an original Yemenite song telling the story of a young girl going after her heart instead of tradition. While recording it, Bezalel and Ofra were looking for someone who could play the narrator. Don Was, the producer of the album, suggested his friend, Iggy Pop, to play that part. Iggy was happy with the suggestion, agreed, and came to the studio immediately to record his part in the song.
In 1994 Ofra was invited to do an interview on ‘Siba Limsiba (Reason for Party)’ talkshow on Israeli TV, and to promote her new album ‘Kol Haneshama’. Ofra sang two songs from the new album, and then invited Glykeria, a Greek singer who was trying her achieve success in Israel at the time. Ofra presented Glykeria to the Israeli audience, and they both sang Irissim, which was originally a Greek song. Ofra sang in Hebrew and Glykeria sang in Greek.
In 1995 Paula Abdul recorded a new album ‘Head Over Heals’, which was intended to bring her back to public awareness after many years of personal problems. The first song due to be released from the album was ‘My Love is for Real’. Paula heard Ofra’s voice, and was so amazed by it, that she asked Ofra to vocally decorate the song. Ofra agreed, but when invited to be on the video clip – she refused, because she had agreed to perform on Dan Shilon’s talk show for Israel’s Independence day the same day. The song had some success, and was shown many times on MTV.
In 1995 Ofra was invited to the special Dan Shilon Show for Israel’s independence day. In the show, Dan revealed that the famous Israeli song ‘She Goes on the Roads’ by Alon Olearchik and was originally written by him to Ofra. Ofra said she did not record the song because its range was not appropriate for her, but she agreed to Dan’s request that they both sing it on stage that evening.
In 1995, duing the special Dan Shilon’s Show for Israel’s independence day, Dan said that he never sings, but on this special night he wants to sing, and asked Ofra to sing with him a famous Israeli song called ‘You and I Will Change the World’, and dedicates it to Shimon Peres, then the Foreign Minister, and Benjamin Netanyahu, then the leader of the opposition. During the last chorus he took Ofra off stage, took Shimon and Benjamin off on to the stage, and started singing with them.
During the same 1995 special Dan Shilon Show for Israel’s independence day, Ofra, together with many other well known Israeli singers, sang ‘If Only’ by Bo’az Shar’abi. Ofra said at one time Bo’az is one of her favorite singers, and in 1998, on a special album for Israel’s 50th anniversary, she recorded his song ‘Giving’.
In 1995 Ofra was invited to ‘Gov Night’ talk show hosted by Gidi Gov. At the end of the show he invited her to sing with him ‘We Didn’t Speak About Love Yet’, a famous Israeli song. The song later appeared on a collection of duets from the show.
Japanese rock singer, Tomoyasu Hotei, recorded in 1998 his album ‘Supersonic Generation’. He wanted to do a a duet with Ofra, and turned to Bezalel through his English agent, Lenny Zakatek. Ofra was already married, and wanted to stay at home with her husband as much as possible, and this is why Bezalel said they can only record in Tel Aviv. But Tomoyasu’s agent insisted that they record in London. “He is a huge star in Japan, and he really wants to record with Ofra”, he said. “It will be two days in London, tops, all covered by us. He is in the middle of recordings in London and can’t leave. Please, don’t insult him. He wants to build this duet with Ofra on the studio”. Finally, Tomoyasu recorded his part in London, and his agent came with the recordings to Israel. Ofra recorded her part in Izhar Ashdot’s studio.
In 1994 Bezalel wrote the Babylon project, that was recorded by Ofra and Black Dog – an Electronic group (who had worked with Bjork amongst others). Bezalel and Ofra did not give final approval to release the tracks of the projects until 1998. The single was released in June 1998, and reached 65 on the British charts and 28 on the British Dance charts. The tracks had many remixes.
In 2003 Frank Peterson produced Sarah Brightman’s album, ‘Harem’. Peterson, who worked with Ofra on her last album ‘Ofra Haza’, released in 1997, kept some unreleased demos of Ofra. During the recordings with Sarah, Frank felt that in one of the songs ‘Mysterious Days’, it would have been great if Ofra could take part, because of its oriental mood. As Ofra had passed away 3 years before, he searched through the demos and found a segment that perfectly matched the song. Sarah loved it very much, and combined Ofra’s part in the song. The album had great success.
Yossi Azulay, a young Israeli singer, says he got a phone call one day. on the other end was Ofra, his favorite singer since he was a child. He had many posters of her all over the walls of his room as a child. “Yossi”, she said, “we don’t know yet, but it’s gonna happen soon. I love your recordings. We will work together one day”. Yossi and Ofra didn’t have a time to work together, because of Ofra’s death a few months after that call, but met in Ran Aviv’s home, with whom Ofra worked on her final album on the last few months of her life. “I suddenly felt how time goes back again, and I’m 8 years old again, a huge fan of Ofra Haza. I felt it was a mystic meeting”.
When Yossi was recording his first album, he felt the need to thank Ofra for everything she did for him and was for him, and especially for what she meant to do for him. He recorded her song ‘Along the Sea’, and combined Ofra’s voice in it.”This was my way of thanking her from the bottom of my heart”, he says.
